Say, in purfuit of profit or delight, 85 Who risk the most, that take wrong means, or right? Of Vice or Virtue, whether bleft or curft, Which meets contempt, or which compaffion firft? Count all th' advantage profp'rous Vice attains, 'Tis but what Virtue flies from and difdains: 90 And grant the bad what happiness they wou'd, One they must want, which is, to pass for good. Oh blind to truth, and God's whole scheme below, Who fancy Bliss to Vice, to Virtue Woe! 94 VARIATIONS. After VER. 92. in the MS. Let fober Moralifts correct their speech, COMMENTARY. attended with circumftances that weaken another part of this triple chord, namely Peace: Reason's whole pleafure, all the joys of Senfe, Lie in three words, Health, Peace, and Competence. And Peace, oh Virtue! Peace is all thy own. VER. 93. Oh blind to truth, &c.] Our author having thus largely confuted the mistake of Happiness's confifting in externals, proceeds to expose the terrible confequences of fuch an opinion on the fentiments and practice of all forts of men, making the Diffolute impious and atheiftical; the Religious uncharitable and intolerant; and the Good reftlefs and difcontent. For when it is once taken for granted, that Happinefs confifts in ex Ep. IV. Who fees and follows that great scheme the best, Best knows the bleffing, and will most be bleft. But fools, the Good alone, unhappy call, For ills or accidents that chance to all. See FALKLAND dies, the virtuous and the just! See god-like TURENNE proftrate on the duft! 100 COMMENTARY. ternals, it is immediately feen that ill men are often more happy than good; which fets all conditions on objecting to the ways of Providence: and fome even on rafhly atttempting to rectify its difpenfations, though by the violation of all Law, divine and human. Now this being the moft momentous part of the subject under confideration, is defervedly treated moft at large. And here it will be proper to take notice of the art of the poet in making this confutation ferve, at the fame time, for a full folution of all objections which might be made to his main propofition, that Happiness confifts not in externals. I. He begins, first of all with the Atheistical complainers, and pursues their impiety, from 93 to 131. Oh! blind to truth! and God's whole fcheme below, &c. VER. 97. But fools the good alone unhappy call, &c.] He exposes their folly even on their own notions of external goods, 1. By examples (from 98 to 111) where he fhews, first, that if good men have been untimely cut off, this is not to be afcribed to their Virtues, but to a contempt of life that hur NOTES. VER. 100. See god-like Turenne] This epithet has a peculiar juftnefs; the great man to whom it is applied not being diftinguished, from other generals, for any of his fuperior qualities fo much as for his providential care of thofe whom he led to war; which was fo uncommon, that his chief purpose in taking on himself the command of armies, feems to have been the Prefervation of Mankind. In this god-like care he was more diftinguishably employed throughout the whole courfe of that famous campaign in which he lost his life. 105 See SIDNEY bleeds amid the martial ftrife! IIO What makes all physical or moral ill? . There deviates Nature, and here wanders Will. COMMENTARY. ried them into dangers. Secondly, That if they will still persist in afcribing untimely death to Virtue; they must needs, on the fame principle, likewise ascribe long life to it: confequently, as the argument, in fact, concludes both ways, in logic it concludes neither. Say, was it Virtue, more tho' Heav'n ne'er gave, Why, full of days and honour, lives the Sire? VER. III. What makes all phyfical or moral ill?] 2. He expofes their folly (from y 100 to 131) by confiderations drawn NOTES. VER. 110. Lent Heav'n a parent &c] This laft instance of the poet's illuftration of the ways of Providence, the reader fees, has a peculiar elegance; where a tribute of piety to a parent is paid in a return of thanks to, and made fubfervient of, his vindication cf, the Great Giver and Father of all God fends not ill; if rightly understood, Or partial Ill is universal Good, Or Change admits, or Nature lets it fall; VARIATIONS. After 116. in the MS. Of ev'ry evil, fince the world began, COMMENTARY. 115 from the fyftem of Nature; and these twofold, natural and moral. You accuse God, fays he, because the good man is subject to natural and moral evil. Let us fee whence these proceed: Natural evil is the neceffary confequence of a material world fo conftituted: But that this conftitution was beft, we have proved in the first Epistle. Moral evil ariseth from the depraved will of Man: Therefore neither the one nor the other from God. But you fay (adds the poet, to thefe impious complainers) that though it be fit Man fhould fuffer the miseries which he brings upon himself by the commiffion of moral evil, yet it seems unfit that his innocent pofterity should bear a share of them. To this, fays he, I reply, We juft as wifely might of Heav'n complain, When his lewd father gave the dire difeafe. But you will still fay, why doth not God either prevent, or immediately repair these evils? You may as well ask why he doth not work continual miracles, and every moment reverse the established laws of Nature: Shall burning Ætna, if a fage requires, &c. things. The arity, a.. NOTES. a perfon of great piety hed, viz. 1733. We just as wifely might of Heav'n complain 120 When his lewd father gave the dire disease. Think we, like fome weak Prince, th'Eternal Cause, Prone for his fav'rites to reverse his laws? 125 Shall burning Etna, if a fage requires, Or fome old temple, nodding to its fall, COMMENTARY. This is the force of the poet's reafoning; and these the men to whom he addrefleth it; namely, the Libertine Cavillers against Providence. NOTES. VFR. 121. Think we, like fome weak Prince, &c.] Agreeably hereunto, holy Scripture, in its acconnt of things under the common Providence of Heaven, never represents miracles as wrought for the fake of him who is the object of them, but in order to give credit to fome of God's extraordinary difpenfations to Mankind. VER. 123. Shall burning Etna, &c.] Alluding to the fate of thofe two great Naturalifts, Empedocles and Pliny, who both perished by too near an approach to Etna and Vefuvius, while they were exploring the caufe of their eruptions. |